Conscious Communication – Voice Mail Etiquette

One of the things we often talk about when making the shift to mobile work is the importance of clear communication.  It’s essential to be a “conscious communicator” and think about what tools to use for what type of message and how you use them.

One tool we all use constantly is voicemail.  It makes me crazy when someone leaves me a voicemail and doesn’t tell me what they want or rushes through their phone number so I have to replay the message several times just to write it down.  When I leave a message I am always sure to speak slowly and repeat my name and number at the beginning and the end of the message.  I also make sure to let the person I’m calling know what I need or why I’m calling.  Something as small as this can cut down on a lot of wasted time and unecessary phone tag.

Today I discovered Jason Seiden’s blog and an excellent video he posted on voice mail etiquette.

Jason hit the nail right on the head here and I’m looking forward to exploring his blog further!

What do you do to be a more conscious communicator?  Post a comment below and share your personal guidelines.

4G Wireless: 20 Questions Asked & Answered – CIO.com – Business Technology Leadership

4G Wireless: 20 Questions Asked & Answered – CIO.com – Business Technology Leadership.

I’ve been seeing the ads for 4G and wondering what it’s all about. So I thought I would share this article I saw today that tackles a little Q&A.

Using Technology for a Lean, Green, Virtual Team

It’s no surprise that telecommuting, workshifting, or virtual work – whatever you choose to call it – not only makes smart business sense but can also help you run a more environmentally friendly business.

Whether you are a large corporation, small business, or solo professional there is a lot you can do to lighten your ecological footprint. When you reduce the need to travel and take advantage of technology to collaborate from anywhere you keep tons of carbon emissions from polluting the world.  A shift to printing less and using more digital documents saves untold numbers of trees.

By taking The Anywhere Office® approach you’ll save money, be more productive, and be more green. So this Earth Day make a commitment to make even a small adjustment to the way you work to do your part.

You can start by downloading The Anywhere Office Toolbox – our free eBook contains information and links to technology, services, and other resources we find of benefit to mobile workers, virtual teams and supporting virtual offices and distributed work.

You’ll find tools for gaining remote access to your documents or computer, holding web meetings and conferences, sending and receiving digital faxes, sending video email and holding video conferences, dealing with time-zones, and marketing your business online.

These are all free or affordable solutions with free trials – so there is no excuse!  Incorporate some of these tools today and make your business more green.

Unchain yourself from the office; work where and when you want.

Free Webinar: Work Unchained – The Competitive Edge of the Anywhere Office®

If you have employees working remotely or are just getting started with telecommuting, virtual teams, or workshifting you won’t want to miss the free webinar I’m delivering next Thursday, April 29th:

Work Unchained: The Competitive Edge
of the Anywhere Office®
Thursday, April 29 at 11 AM (PDT) / 2 PM (EDT)

Business as usual no longer involves working in a traditional workplace at set hours. Today’s workforce is more mobile than ever, and every day more people are working from virtual offices, client sites, home offices, coffee shops, airports, hotels, and any number of remote workplaces. Companies that take an ad-hoc approach to this work-style struggle, while those with a strategic, planned approach reap the benefit and flexibility of distributed work.

I partnered with Citrix (makers of GoToMyPC) to deliver this free Webinar. Learn how to evaluate your own organization’s workflow to strategically turn your ordinary office into The Anywhere Office®.

Attend to learn:

• Why workshifting provides a critical competitive edge
• Common mistakes to avoid when enabling a mobile workforce
• Best practices for evaluating your organization before implementing a workshifting strategy
• And more…

Click here to reserve your complimentary seat

I’m looking forward to the presentation and I hope you’ll join us!

4 Easy Ways to Share Large Files

It’s not unusual in these days of webworking and remote collaboration to have the need to share large files with colleagues, clients, or even family members.  Not only do we have large reports but there are also the ever growing collection of photos, audio, and video files.

While Gmail allows you to send attachment up to a generous 25 MB in size – there are times where that just isn’t large enough as you may have files that are 100 or more MB to send. Here are 4 great services I’ve found that will let you easily send large files to others:

YouSendIt – The free version of this service will let you send files up to 100 MB with a 1 GB monthly download limit. The file will remain available for 7 days to download.  Simply go to their website, fill out a short form (with your email address, the address of who you want to send the file to, a subject line, and short message), then click the browse button and choose which file you want to send.  It upload the file to their servers and emails a link to the person you are sending the file to. If you want additional features including the ability to send files up to 2GB in size you can choose one of their paid services (including pay per use if you only need to do this once in a while).

Dropbox – Dropbox not only lets you easily share files with others but it also allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically. They give you 2GB of online storage for free and you can pay for up to 100 GB. You need to download a small program but it’s free and work on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems. It creates a dropbox folder on your computer where you can easily copy files to upload them or share them with others.  What I love about Dropbox is that you can share an entire folder and make it public or just share it with a group of people. There are some other great features: Read more